This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top.
I guess this is a thing I'm doing now.
Consider this edition 1 of my personal newsletter, "wilde at heart." Right now, it'll be about curating my thoughts on what I read, watch, etc. during the week. However, I'm wanting to foster a writing practice as well as a practice to creatively express my thoughts and ideas. I want to affirm that my ideas have value to other people. Not monetary value (although, hey, if you wanna give me money, I won't say no), but emotional and intellectual value, value that helps people build power with others. Hopefully sooner rather than later, this newsletter will have a short essay in it as well as all the curated stuff. I also want to experiment with hypertext (non-)fiction and zines. Finally, this newsletter initially is me practicing for a larger project that I can't talk publicly about yet. (If you already know, no you don't.)
To introduce the newsletter, I'll tell you a bit about how I write it. I use the note-taking outliner software Logseq; it's similar to Roam Research and other "linked thinking" programs, but it uses local Markdown or Org files instead of them being on a server in a proprietary format. Also, it's free and open source. To capture resources to write about every week, I follow the workflow Ramses Oudt demonstrates in his video How to Write a Curated Newsletter with Logseq. I publish with the newsletter provider Buttondown.
Now, let's get this road on the show.
✒️ What I'm writing
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The aesthetics of information affects our relationships to it
This note in my Zettelkasten came after I read a tumblr post about someone drawing arrows between their notes to make them hold hands. It was like seeing God.
I've been extremely into the idea of the aesthetics of information for a while now; I'm glad I'm finally doing some writing about it.
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I definitely want to grow this note out a bit and split it up for my Zettelkasten, eventually. I want to continue to explore what information can be. I argue it can be anything, that it is everything. Its role in spirituality and spirituality's role in information intrigues me.
I also did a "poetry sprint" with some folks from my Building a Second Brain cohort. It was a lot of very quick on the spot writing based on prompts. I'm not sure if any of the poems I wrote are worth cleaning up to share, but the process of writing them was nice. I haven't written poetry in a while.
🎨 What I'm creating
📖 What I'm reading
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Weighing Fields in Library Catalog Search, or, The Hillbilly Elegy Problem by Ruth Kitchin Tillman
If you're not a metadata librarian, you might not get much out of this. However, I found Tillman's breakdown of how search algorithms determine the relevance of an item to be fascinating. And I think it relates to search engine optimization in general. What matters more for relevancy: what something is about, or how many times certain words and phrases appear in its indexed metadata?
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The Edited Latecomer's Guide to Crypto by Molly White
I know I still have some friends who participate in web3. I implore you, please, to read this. And to stop. I'm not judging you, but I care about you enough to use some wrathful compassion. You are not just being taken advantage of. You are participating in and supporting the continuing existence of a system and community that borders on a cult (I would argue it absolutely is a cult) and scams all but the most already-wealthy. You are not participating in a revolutionary decentralized anti- anything. You are part of the problem, and I don't want you to be.
Molly White is great, and this annotated version of a recent New York Times article about crypto and web3 provides so much information about why crypto and web3 are misguided at best and actively harmful to people and the environment at worst. I know I sometimes have a hard time countering pro-crypto arguments off the top of my head; I'm not the best at spontaneous rhetoric, and even when I have the time to break down an argument, my brain just...isn't great at it all the time. Reading this was helpful and gave me a lot of supporting information when arguing and informing against crypto and web3.
🎥 What I'm watching
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Crimes of the Future
I saw Crimes of the Future Friday night.
I liked it a lot, but I am predicting it will be polarizing. I actually found it quite funny; I'm not sure if that's what Cronenberg intended. In respect to those who haven't yet seen it, I won't spoil, but I will say that it seems to be poking fun at some of Cronenberg's earlier works, particularly Videodrome: weird biological things that should not be biological for no apparent reason, pretentious declarations about flesh ("BODY IS REALITY" had me laughing out loud), Viggo Mortensen's character gets a Cronenberg Symbolic Stomach Pussy™️ which Léa Seydoux's character tongue fucks.
I found the film to be very funny, a bunch of artists taking themselves too seriously, trying to give everything Meaning. Because I am absolutely one of those people, and I love performance art.
I like how it's exploring themes of how we treat the body in Capitalism. Oh, you're in pain? Turn your pain into art!!! But make sure it's so you can make money. Open yourself up to be penetrated, but only so things can be cut and ripped out of you. A child is born with a digestive system that can eat plastic? Well obviously that's bad, a sign that the horrors we've done to the earth are being passed on to our children...but remember to make art about it and make money, carve it up and make it fit into the very system it's criticizing. Capitalist realism at its finest.
There's a heavy emphasis on what the body means, politically, erotically, and artistically. And there's a tension between an "old" and "new" way of interacting with the plasticity (hah, I see what you did there, Cronenberg) of bodies.
I do not think it is a coincidence or accident that the first thing we learn about Viggo Mortensen's character is that there is a new hormone in his system. His body is often penetrated, mostly by women.
I haven't read/listened to any interviews, but I wonder if Cronenberg is familiar with Donna Haraway's Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. I won't say why, but I think it's a useful text to pair with the film.
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Succession
I started watching Succession finally back in March or February I think. I bingewatched the first season one Sunday. This week, I got more into Season 2.
Which means I watched Season 2, Episode 4.
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Bingewatching is Kinda Bad for TV
I thought this video made an interesting argument about serialization and how it affects the structure of media. Also, I like how Sarah Z brings in the social aspect of media and how serialization fosters community. I think it would be good to focus on the social aspect of media structures, not just how content might affect society.
🎶 What I'm listening to
I had to drive down to Cambridge Tuesday, and I gotta say, Le Nozze di Figaro is incredible for getting through commuter traffic.
I seem to be on a Mozart kick because I was also listening to Don Giovanni a lot. In particular, I was listening to "Deh, vieni alla finestra." I usually listen to Peter Mattei's version from his "Great Baritone Arias" album. But my favorite is this one from a recent Glyndebourne production.
And, as always, I listen to Joyce DiDonato's "Pensieri, voi mi tormentate" from Handel's Agrippina a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I should write up what it was like seeing her perform it.